Great Reads

Accessing the Vital Intelligence in Your Workplace In her newest book (August, 2021), researcher and workplace consultant Karla McLaren explores the emotional condition of the modern workplace. Sadly, the news isn’t good. In all studies of workplace mental health, researchers have found that the workplace overwhelmingly creates unhealthy and even emotionally abusive environments that negatively affect the health and well-being of workers. We’ve all been taught … Read More

Growing Up in a Cult, Getting Out, and Starting Over This month’s Great Read helps us look at the usually hidden world of cults so that we can understand how they work, how they entrap people, and how people can get out. Many people think that cults are bizarre groups filled with lost people, but the work of international cult expert Janja Lalich helps us see … Read More

How We Meet and Why it Matters This month’s Great Read helps us look at meetings and gatherings in new ways so that we can build meaning and purpose into our meetings, parties, get-togethers, and gatherings. Author Priya Parker specializes in conflict resolution and change management in organizations, and through her work, she learned how to set up meetings that prepared people to be successful in … Read More

The Secret Life of the Brain This month’s Great Read is by a researcher who has upended the entire study of emotions. Lisa Feldman Barrett is a professor of Psychology and a groundbreaking brain researcher who has led us into a new understanding of how the brain works, how emotions work, and why so many of our accepted ideas about the brain are mistaken or just … Read More

A Primatologist Explores the Development of Empathy in Primates This month’s Great Read is a wonderful exploration of the deep roots of empathy in our primate cousins by Sir Frans de Waal. Dr. de Waal began his study of primates by watching for violence, conflict, and warring behaviors, but he soon realized that there were just as many soothing, comforting, fight-avoiding, and consolation behaviors among the … Read More

Uncovering Our Biological Need for Meaning, Spirituality, and Truth This month’s Great Read delves into beliefs — why we have them, how they work, and what purpose they play. Andrew Newberg is a professor of Radiology and Psychiatry who studied the brain scans of people as they prayed, meditated, and spoke in tongues. Why We Believe What We Believe is a fascinating journey into the cognitive … Read More

A Pioneer in Sleep Medicine Explores the Vital Connection Between Health, Happiness, and a Good Night’s Sleep This month’s Great Read is a classic written by a pioneer in the field of sleep, the late, great Dr. William Dement Dr. Dement was one of the earliest specialists in sleep science, and he was the founder and director of the Stanford University Sleep Research Center. Besides providing … Read More

Why We Believe in the Unbelievable This month’s Great Read helps us look at superstitions not as signs of ignorance, but as signs of our brains working in unusual ways to make sense of the world. If you lost your wedding ring, and I offered to replace it with an exact and shiny new duplicate, would you accept it — or would your previous ring carry … Read More

The Great Doubters and Their Legacy of Innovation from Socrates and Jesus to Thomas Jefferson and Emily Dickinson This month’s Great Read is a startling exploration of the history of doubters, doubt, apostacy, atheism, and Jennifer Michael Hecht is a philosopher, historian, and poet who chronicles the history of doubt in this well-researched and beautifully-written book. In Doubt: A History, we learn that doubt has always … Read More

Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts by Carol Tavris and Eliot Aronson This month’s Great Read is a classic by social psychologists and researchers Carol Tavris and Eliot Aronson, who present a readable, direct, and often uncomfortable(!) explanation of cognitive dissonance – which is our human tendency to hold onto flawed ideas or behaviors even when all of the data suggest that … Read More